#Vote LABOR

[anteroom-of-death]

Voting isn't enough I need to latch onto enough politicians Necks like a starving dog on a bloody steak until they all get the message!

[claraameliapond]

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HAPPY VOTING DAY EVERYONE!!!! Aka my fellow Victorians 💖💕💗

Please please vote for Womens Health, 100% renewable clean government owned energy ( this is huge!!!!!)

A government who will advocate for and stand up for the rights of its people

This is the INCREDIBLE Victorian Labor Government that KEPT US ALL SAFE during the pandemic and dedicated each day, and all night, including weekends, to monitoring and informing the public about coronavirus and properly tracked and traced its spread and individually contacted people known to be near an infected individual

They LITERALLY DID NOT REST WHILE VICTORIANS WERE AT RISK

I want a government dedicated to my health

You don't get that kind of dedication - or work - with anyone else

Their ability to keep us safe in the pandemic was unparalleled Worldwide.

Please be aware of this.

Noone else in the world handed it as well as the Victorian Labor Government with Dan Andrews

World class leadership

And it worked

It was effective and the safest way to handle it

I want a government who will advocate for the human rights of its people, whose literal job it is to protect, and will not give in, even when actively targeted and bullied constantly by the opposing federal governing body at the time about its logical approach using scientific information and evidence to protect us all

I STAND WITH DAN

I want a government who will prepare responsibly and dedicate themselves to advocating for the human rights of its people and the safety of all, and to fixing whatever issues or challenges come its way and actively find working solutions

I want a government who will be upfront and tell us scientific medical information about public health and concerns, and actively take precautions to ensure its people stay as safe as possible in things like a pandemic

Who will actively inform the public about what is happening as it happens and who can be trusted and relied upon to give the best scientific evidence, advice and action about it

I want a government who listens to and trusts science and logic

Who proactively applies logic, common sense and scientific knowledge to their actions, precautions and solutions

And delivers results

I want a government who will fund what matters

The continued removal of dangerous level crossings and all the safe new train stations whose lines DO NOT INTERSECT A ROAD (= aka a level crossing) the three near me have just been finished and oh my gosh it's amazing lasting infrastructure

Changing and fixing practical things like infrastructure and human rights laws and access to medicine, education and clean energy

Lasting change that transforms our way of life and empowers individuals

That fixes things and creates lasting positive change

Who genuinely believe in women's equality and in protecting the environment

Who advocate for and believe in Aboriginal cultural respect in its already world first laws and actions and initiatives regarding this

Please please please vote to keep us safe in this continuing pandemic , and to empower our state with equality , equally distributed health care, education and training access , government owned clean energy 😀 😊 and a protected environment

Please make sure you VOTE LABOR

This 2022 Victorian State Election

Xxxxx

[labourites]

"It's time for the government to stop spending and to start cutting taxes and regulation, sometimes the best way the government can help is simply to get out of the way" Tory Scum Johnson said.

HOWEVER, this is precisely the approach that led us to the 2008 financial crash. "Tories trashing Britain" is, I guess, the new three word slogan

[commonpeople2359]

Download free posters and social media images from the following link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-9i-rB4kbMzOkZIu8QzHglG39_bVU5zJ

Put them on your socials. Post them to forums. Send them to your friends. 

Print them out and paste them up around your city, neighbourhood, work, universities.

[save-the-data]

My preferences are not torn, I know exactly who I am voting for but this is brilliant from Sammy J. 

[richo1915]

Australia gets a run in the Cold War.

And once again the Bloody Liberals use a crisis to cement themselves in office. Crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

[reasonsforhope]

"For the first time in almost 60 years, a state has formally overturned a so-called “right to work” law, clearing the way for workers to organize new union locals, collectively bargain, and make their voices heard at election time.

This week, Michigan finalized the process of eliminating a decade-old “right to work” law, which began with the shift in control of the state legislature from anti-union Republicans to pro-union Democrats following the 2022 election. “This moment has been decades in the making,” declared Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron Bieber. “By standing up and taking their power back, at the ballot box and in the workplace, workers have made it clear Michigan is and always will be the beating heart of the modern American labor movement.”

[Note: The article doesn't actually explain it, so anyway, "right to work" laws are powerful and deceptively named pieces of anti-union legislation. What right to work laws do is ban "union shops," or companies where every worker that benefits from a union is required to pay dues to the union. Right-to-work laws really undermine the leverage and especially the funding of unions, by letting non-union members receive most of the benefits of a union without helping sustain them. Sources: x, x, x, x]

In addition to formally scrapping the anti-labor law on Tuesday [February 13, 2024], Michigan also restored prevailing-wage protections for construction workers, expanded collective bargaining rights for public school employees, and restored organizing rights for graduate student research assistants at the state’s public colleges and universities. But even amid all of these wins for labor, it was the overturning of the “right to work” law that caught the attention of unions nationwide...

Now, the tide has begun to turn—beginning in a state with a rich labor history. And that’s got the attention of union activists and working-class people nationwide...

At a time when the labor movement is showing renewed vigor—and notching a string of high-profile victories, including last year’s successful strike by the United Auto Workers union against the Big Three carmakers, the historic UPS contract victory by the Teamsters, the SAG-AFTRA strike win in a struggle over abuses of AI technology in particular and the future of work in general, and the explosion of grassroots union organizing at workplaces across the country—the overturning of Michigan’s “right to work” law and the implementation of a sweeping pro-union agenda provides tangible evidence of how much has changed in recent years for workers and their unions...

By the mid-2010s, 27 states had “right to work” laws on the books.

But then, as a new generation of workers embraced “Fight for 15” organizing to raise wages, and campaigns to sign up workers at Starbucks and Amazon began to take off, the corporate-sponsored crusade to enact “right to work” measures stalled. New Hampshire’s legislature blocked a proposed “right to work” law in 2017 (and again in 2021), despite the fact that the measure was promoted by Republican Governor Chris Sununu. And in 2018, Missouri voters rejected a “right to work” referendum by a 67-33 margin.

Preventing anti-union legislation from being enacted and implemented is one thing, however. Actually overturning an existing law is something else altogether.

But that’s what happened in Michigan after 2022 voting saw the reelection of Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a labor ally, and—thanks to the overturning of gerrymandered legislative district maps that had favored the GOP—the election of Democratic majorities in the state House and state Senate. For the first time in four decades, the Democrats controlled all the major levers of power in Michigan, and they used them to implement a sweeping pro-labor agenda. That was a significant shift for Michigan, to be sure. But it was also an indication of what could be done in other states across the Great Lakes region, and nationwide.

“Michigan Democrats took full control of the state government for the first time in 40 years. They used that power to repeal the state’s ‘right to work’ law,” explained a delighted former US secretary of labor Robert Reich, who added, “This is why we have to show up for our state and local elections.”"

-via The Nation, February 16, 2024

[socialjusticeinamerica]

[animentality]

If Republicans want to start forcing 16 and 17 year olds to work 40 hour weeks, then the fucking voting age should be 16.

Fucking. pricks.

[claraameliapond]

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A post shared by Kevin Rudd (@mrkrudd)

[commonpeople2359]

Download free posters and social media images from the following link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-9i-rB4kbMzOkZIu8QzHglG39_bVU5zJ

Put them on your socials. Post them to forums. Send them to your friends.

Print them out and paste them up around your city, neighbourhood, work, universities.

[save-the-data]

If you’re of age to vote, live in Australia and undecided please watch this before you vote. 

[decolonize-the-left]

In US voting news, more of the Democratic party is more visibly refusing Biden everyday.

"In a statement shared first with NBC News after its executive board voted on the endorsement Wednesday night, the Washington union called Biden “an ally to workers over the last four years,” but suggested it is not confident in his ability to defeat likely GOP nominee Donald Trump in November.

“Currently, many voters, and UFCW 3000 executive board, feel that the best path to have the best nominee, and to defeat Trump, is to vote ‘uncommitted,’” the union said in the statement. “The hope is that this will strengthen the Democratic party’s ultimate nominee to defeat Trump in the General Election in November.”

“We need a nominee who can run and beat Trump to protect workers across this country and around the world,” the statement continued.

[...]This week in Michigan, home to a large Muslim and Arab community concerned about the war in Gaza, about 13% of Democratic primary voters chose “uncommitted” over Biden. That will mean at least two uncommitted delegates will be seated at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

The Washington union praised those who voted “uncommitted” in Michigan and said “Biden must push for a lasting ceasefire and ending US funding toward this reckless war.”

Meanwhile, The Stranger, a prominent alt-weekly publication based in Seattle, also endorsed the idea of voting “uncommitted,” expressing disappointment in the options of Trump and Biden, whom it referred to as the “two genocidal geriatrics leading the polls.”

And I'll just leave this here for anyone entertaining other parties. You wouldn't be the only one voting for someone else.

[reasonsforhope]

Version that doesn't require sign-in.

"Hot Labor Summer just became a scorcher.

[On August 25, 2023], the National Labor Relations Board released its most important ruling in many decades. In a party-line decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, the Board ruled that when a majority of a company’s employees file union affiliation cards, the employer can either voluntarily recognize their union or, if not, ask the Board to run a union recognition election. If, in the run-up to or during that election, the employer commits an unfair labor practice, such as illegally firing pro-union workers (which has become routine in nearly every such election over the past 40 years, as the penalties have been negligible), the Board will order the employer to recognize the union and enter forthwith [a.k.a. immediately] into bargaining.

The Cemex decision was preceded by another, one day earlier, in which the Board, also along party lines, set out rules for representation elections which required them to be held promptly after the Board had been asked to conduct them, curtailing employers’ ability to delay them, often indefinitely.

Taken together, this one-two punch effectively makes union organizing possible again, after decades in which unpunished employer illegality was the most decisive factor in reducing the nation’s rate of private-sector unionization from roughly 35 percent to the bare 6 percent at which it stands today...

“This is a sea change, a home run for workers,” said Brian Petruska, an attorney for the Laborers Union who authored a 2017 law review article on how to effectively restore to workers their right to collective bargaining enshrined in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which was all but nullified by the act’s weakening over the past half-century. Taken together, Petruska added, last week’s decisions recreate “a system with no tolerance for employers’ coercion of their employees” when their employees seek their legal right to collective bargaining...

Since the days of Lyndon Johnson, every time that the Democrats have controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, they’ve tried to put some teeth back into the steadily more toothless NLRA. But they’ve never managed to muster the 60 votes needed to get those measures through the Senate. The Cemex ruling actually goes beyond much of what was proposed in those never-enacted bills."

-via The American Prospect, August 28, 2023

--

Note: I didn't include it because the paragraphs about it went super into the weeds, but the reason all of this is happening is because of the NRLB's general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, who was appointed by Biden. In fact, according to this article, this "secures Abruzzo’s place as the most important public official to secure American workers’ rights since New York Sen. Robert Wagner, who authored the NLRA in 1935." Voting matters

[soberscientistlife]